Tyburn, I really find it ironic that you and other Brits lecture us about gun ownership given what happened within the lifetime of people that are still alive. Please read up on WW2. Pictured above is a poster from The American Committee For Defense of British Homes. They collected donations from private American citizens to help arm England to defend against a Nazi invasion of the British Isles. According to the last weekly report released by the committee on Dec. 6, 1941 (the day before the bombing of Pearl Harbor) private American citizens had donated and shipped 5,133 shotguns and rifles, 6,337 revolvers, 110 Thompson submachine guns and 642,291 rounds of ammunition. The committee was also able to procure from U.S. government surplus and ship to Britain a total of 13, 763 revolvers, 30,000 magazines and 1.4 million rounds of ammunition. Part of the reason you are not speaking German is because American "gun nuts" helped arm you and save your bacon. When your Muslims start their takeover, please don't expect us to arm you again. I have a feeling the help won't be there this time.

Amen, my friend!

Quote:

Originally Posted by hughesfan4life

thoughts and prayers are with the friends and families of the wee ones and their brave teachers who lost their lives trying to protect those wee inocents..xx

Sorry, Dave, but you are totally wrong here. The second amendment only affirms our God-given right. The forefathers knew we had to be armed to resist a tyrannical government, like King George's. The intent of the Second Amendment is to be certain that the people were armed at the same level as the government, purely to make sure that attempted tyranny would be a bloody and dangerous business.

Careful with your statements about our supposed "love" of guns and our beloved Constitution. Just saying.

Well in that case...I suppose consitutionally...you should be able to have machine guns after all....I always thought it was for protection...but not to be equal to the Government in turms of arms....that I didnt know.

thing is I already think your Government...by Consitutional levels is Tyranical...not because its oppressing its people...but because its acting well beyond its design brief...I mean...how can a Federal Government go from only being able to make laws concerning imports/exports and Transport...to making ANY laws about Education or Health whatsoever?

I know it had to act beyond its design brief during the Civil War...but its like your Government (as in Federal) is still acting on the same level as it did during the Civil War...thats not inkeeping with the general peace time principles where State Governments are supposed to be incharge...and the Federation nothing more then a collection of State Government representatives.

That happened without any "bloody and dangerous business"

What are your thoughts on the actual physical Federal Government? is its very permanent being (rather then convention style congressionals) actually completely in contradiction of the consitutional basis for its existance? You seem to know a lot about it...I just want to be sure that what I have in my mind...is correct in that situation.

1) Are you kidding me?! Dave you are way smarter than that. The right to bear arms was for the purpose of defense. More specifically, it was to keep the local Militias armed. That being the case, based on what you are saying, we should only be allowed to defend ourselves with muskets?!

2) BTW. Over here in the USA, some of us love to shoot guns. Like, for fun. To some, its a sport. You can call it, trying to be more manly if you want, I dont care. We work, earn money, pay bills, then if we can afford it afterward, we purchase a gun or ammo and shoot. (and i promise you that none of us give a crap if anyone thinks we do it to be more of a man)
I have been quiet on this issue but man, come on.

3)AND! The comment before about banning guns that look like machine guns is nuts. So because a gun is black and has a larger magazine(that's a "clip"), it should be banned?

4) Well, then i guess we cant have black handled kitchen knives because they look like small swords and heaven knows that swords have been used to kill a whole bunch of people. Guess even machetes are out of the question as well. Sorry fellas, we are going to have to gnaw our ways throught the brush instead of using a machete because it looks like a sword. I can keep going based on this ignorant way of thinking!

5) A hunting shotgun with buck shot could have killed more people in less time than that kid with the AR15 did in CT.
The fact is, PEOPLE commit crimes. Not guns.

6) According to the FBI, the #1 wepon of choice in violent crimes is a baseball bat. Why arent people trying to restrict baseball bat ownership? Could it be because they are used also for sport? hmmmm. Imagine that. If you really want to split hairs, look at the baseball bat. Looks like a club. What was the original use for a club?....... you see where Im going with this?

7) The limits need to be reasonable, yes. No need for a citizen to have a full auto weapon or grenades. I agree. I know some lame arguments will be thrown my way on this and when I get back on I will shoot them down or reason with them, but they better be stronger than, "well they look bad".

No disrepect brother. I love you man. I hope I havn't made a bunch of folks mad but, come on.

1) What I was saying is YES...if the ideal was a right to bear arms, but not expressed that that limit should rise in responce to a Governments military, which I didnt know until Flo told me...then YES the right to bear arms would be the right to bear whatever arms only existed at the time of its writing.

2) thats not culturally compatable with modern day British culture. Remember, we dont really do cultural confidence...let alone having "fun" with what we ONLY associate with weapons of war. You have to understand that we dont hunt anymore, and we are not allowed weapons like that...except with the strictest of regulations. So we do NOT see that one could have "fun" with such things. We merely see them as weapons for war...their reason for being is to kill people, thats what they were made for. They are tools of war. Naturally therefore we would not be comfortable with using them in a blase manner, nor linking them with masculinity as if there was nothing unusual about them...most Brittons will NEVER SEE A GUN OF ANY TYPE do you understand that. If you do, then my position is a logical follow on of a culture that simply doesnt have that...Imagine what the Native Americans might have felt like when the first settlers arrived with firearms....they had never see hand guns before....well largely alot of English people are probably about as clueless...except they are aware of their existance.

3) to me there are only three different types of guns...Revolvers with the bit in the middle that spins round. Pistols, which dont have the bit that spins round, people tell me they can be automatic or semi-automatic...which someone said means that the more automatic they are the faster they shoot and sometimes you dont need to pull a trigger multiple times just keep it pressed down and it fires more then one. The third type is rifles...these have really long spouts and sometimes they have more then one hole. Anything with a big bit that drops out the bottom...thats a machine gun to me....People talk about gauges which I think is the size of the hole, and calibre which I think is the size of the bullets...beyond that I know absolutely nothing about guns...and neither should you expect me to...people in my culture that show an unhealthy knowledge are the sort of people who might do what happened in the school. In Harrogate...we actually do get to see some guns...because of Menwith Hill...there Ministry of Defense Police are one of only three types to be in possession of firearms. Being that we are the closest large store to the base (besides whatever they presumably have on the base itself) its not suprising we get strays in...though I personally dont think they should be armed when not at the base...for obvious reasons, noone wants to be the law abiding citizen to clarify that point to them

4) We are not permitted to carry knives either. though some people do. obviously we can own them because they have a function other then to kill people, that is to chop stuff up...but there is no need for people to have anything beyond a kitchen knife...I actually do collect knives...but I dont use them for anything. I like them because they look pretty...I only have about three, coz they cost an absolute bomb, but you can get replicas of all sorts of types.

5) I dont know what you mean.

6) I made that point about ceremonial mace before, but noone listened

7) but it did look bad Thats all I can say...I dont know nowt about guns, neither should I, im living in England, we dont have them here. I've already told you anything that I dont recognise as a revolver, pistol, or rifle...looks like a machine gun to me I'm sorry that I dont know any more then that really. I saw the photograph on the news...and I would say it was a machine gun...it was big and didnt fit anything else on my taxonomy, so I got it wrong, if you say its something else, whatever...I cant be blamed because ive got such a limited taxonomy of something that doesnt even exist in my culture...I dont think half the people in this country would know the difference between a pistol and a revolver...so I personally dont think I'm doing too bad

Tyburn, I really find it ironic that you and other Brits lecture us about gun ownership given what happened within the lifetime of people that are still alive. Please read up on WW2. Pictured above is a poster from The American Committee For Defense of British Homes. They collected donations from private American citizens to help arm England to defend against a Nazi invasion of the British Isles. According to the last weekly report released by the committee on Dec. 6, 1941 (the day before the bombing of Pearl Harbor) private American citizens had donated and shipped 5,133 shotguns and rifles, 6,337 revolvers, 110 Thompson submachine guns and 642,291 rounds of ammunition. The committee was also able to procure from U.S. government surplus and ship to Britain a total of 13, 763 revolvers, 30,000 magazines and 1.4 million rounds of ammunition. Part of the reason you are not speaking German is because American "gun nuts" helped arm you and save your bacon. When your Muslims start their takeover, please don't expect us to arm you again. I have a feeling the help won't be there this time.

So sorry if what I am about to say offends anyone, but what PTM said typifies exactly what a lot of English people feel towards America, and why. I have to say, that I understand your culture FAR better then you understand mine. But when I am faced with such an outrage as the bloody pretense of smug "help" which only made matters worse...rather then telling the truth about these "Gifts" of defence to Britons...well I'm afraid we open the history books and tell the truth, I'm sorry if that reflects badly on America, or upsets good americans, that are my friends, and cant be held responsible for the wayward nature of a grossly obease Federal thing...but I will never the less tell afew home truthes...You would do the same if roles were reversed...as you often do if I get my facts wrong

Oh...this would be help from Americans during the war would it? Americans that didnt even get involved until they were directly attacked...helpped us, and then pretend that THEY won the war?

This would be the America which helpped our nation by sending us "DONATED" supplies by sea across the Atlantic, and then in a time when it was loaded with cash and we had none because we had defended ourselves for years before the american intervention, turned round and told us it had been a loan, and expected repayment with interest which was still going on in MY lifetime.

I dont mean to be rude...but we would find ways of surviving without America...after all...the vast majority of our History, when we were at our height, with an Empire on which the sun never set, happened largely before "America" even existed in its modern form.

We survived the Normans, the Vikings, Nations that came and went in Our History before America...and Adolf never tried to invade this country. Why not is a mystery when despite your aid of firearms, we were a sitting duck after dunkirk. When all military stratagists lobbied Hitler, and rightly so from a germanic point of view, or even a sensible point of view if you want to win a war, to attack....He went for an insurmountable Russia.

Well..that will be the same reason why in a campaign of all night bombing, for fifty seven consecutive nights...something no American would know anything about since such an outrage never happened on American soil....the entire German Airforce, given a region, precisely one square mile in size, managed to miss the only large building and main target in the whole city.

You explain it. Or shall I? The Americans did not defend us...Our Defence came from GOD himself on both those two levels.

We are a shell of our former self...we lost everything, our Empire, our Wealth, our Power because instead of doing what was right, America left us to our fate...and then jumped in when we were almost dead on our feet, our Cities distroyed, our whole generation of men, dead.

So dont pretend that those arms were gifts...because we had to pay the Americans for everything they gave us...it was hardly from the kindness of their heart. It was about capitalistic gain and investment which America did, in Central Europe.

Shall we talk about what a success that has been? My,My, on the eve of what can only be described as a Federal Europe, with a successor of the German Chancellor as its head. Post War Europe is made in whose image? Coz, correct me if im wrong....but wasnt this what we were physically fighting to stop about 85 odd years ago.

Or would you rather we talked about the muslims, who bombed our capitol because we helpped you fight your wars?

If anyone can, or is willing to, explain why the government and law enforcement need the weapons that are being considered to be banned, then you officially answer the question of why civilians need them. ;)

So sorry if what I am about to say offends anyone, but what PTM said typifies exactly what a lot of English people feel towards America, and why. I have to say, that I understand your culture FAR better then you understand mine. But when I am faced with such an outrage as the bloody pretense of smug "help" which only made matters worse...rather then telling the truth about these "Gifts" of defence to Britons...well I'm afraid we open the history books and tell the truth, I'm sorry if that reflects badly on America, or upsets good americans, that are my friends, and cant be held responsible for the wayward nature of a grossly obease Federal thing...but I will never the less tell afew home truthes...You would do the same if roles were reversed...as you often do if I get my facts wrong

Oh...this would be help from Americans during the war would it? Americans that didnt even get involved until they were directly attacked...helpped us, and then pretend that THEY won the war?

This would be the America which helpped our nation by sending us "DONATED" supplies by sea across the Atlantic, and then in a time when it was loaded with cash and we had none because we had defended ourselves for years before the american intervention, turned round and told us it had been a loan, and expected repayment with interest which was still going on in MY lifetime.

I dont mean to be rude...but we would find ways of surviving without America...after all...the vast majority of our History, when we were at our height, with an Empire on which the sun never set, happened largely before "America" even existed in its modern form.

We survived the Normans, the Vikings, Nations that came and went in Our History before America...and Adolf never tried to invade this country. Why not is a mystery when despite your aid of firearms, we were a sitting duck after dunkirk. When all military stratagists lobbied Hitler, and rightly so from a germanic point of view, or even a sensible point of view if you want to win a war, to attack....He went for an insurmountable Russia.

Well..that will be the same reason why in a campaign of all night bombing, for fifty seven consecutive nights...something no American would know anything about since such an outrage never happened on American soil....the entire German Airforce, given a region, precisely one square mile in size, managed to miss the only large building and main target in the whole city.

You explain it. Or shall I? The Americans did not defend us...Our Defence came from GOD himself on both those two levels.

We are a shell of our former self...we lost everything, our Empire, our Wealth, our Power because instead of doing what was right, America left us to our fate...and then jumped in when we were almost dead on our feet, our Cities distroyed, our whole generation of men, dead.

So dont pretend that those arms were gifts...because we had to pay the Americans for everything they gave us...it was hardly from the kindness of their heart. It was about capitalistic gain and investment which America did, in Central Europe.

Shall we talk about what a success that has been? My,My, on the eve of what can only be described as a Federal Europe, with a successor of the German Chancellor as its head. Post War Europe is made in whose image? Coz, correct me if im wrong....but wasnt this what we were physically fighting to stop about 85 odd years ago.

Or would you rather we talked about the muslims, who bombed our capitol because we helpped you fight your wars?

Tyburn, I would consider myself an Anglophile. I don't dance on the grave of the British Empire. I wish that Britain would have been better armed prior to WW2. Thankfully, they were able to fight off the Nazi attack; however, it was by no means a certainty at the time. My point is that a country should be well-armed because we never know what dangers and threats await us. I want our country to be well-armed against any threat: be it Mexican drug lords, Muslim terrorists or the Red Chinese Army.
As far as the U.S. saving Britain, I believe the comment Churchill made about his thoughts when he went to sleep on Pearl Harbor Day: I "went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful."
The arms donated by the Committee were gifts from private American citizens. The British government also had agents purchasing arms in America. You are probably referring to debts related to the Lend-Lease Act, which involved warships, not private arms donated by private citizens.
You sound like a Calvinist saying that God defended you rather than the U.S.
I don't want to burst your bubble about St. Paul's, but I am going to relate a comment I heard from a WW2 pilot's wife. The pilot and his wife were touring Europe many years after WW2 and were touring a cathedral in an Axis country (I think it was Austria but can't recall). The docent mentioned that the cathedral had made it through the war unscathed and attributed it to the beneficence of the Almighty. After the tour, the pilot whispered to his wife that the cathedral was within the area of his bombing runs and was purposely left unscathed so it could serve as a landmark to help with coordinates in the era before GPS. I don't mean to question your faith, but the German pilots probably didn't destroy it so they had a landmark for future bombings (e.g. your next target is a factory 1.3 miles north of the cathedral).

__________________"Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."
--Hugh Latimer, October 16, 1555

Yeah, that's what everyone told the Revolutionaries in colonial times. They were completely outgunned and outclassed by the British military; but America won its independence just the same.

Oh, I thought you were actually going to provide a link to a news story, so that we could all read it and share this information. But instead it seems that you're only here to start a fight and insult anyone who disagrees with you.

Maybe you should allow us time to mourn and time to process this tragedy, before getting on here and pushing all of your anti-gun opinions. Your attitude is very disrespectful so I think you need a few days to cool off.

my attitude is disrespectful ? no more then yours is Nate.

one of the children that was killed on Friday actually lived in my community and
a few months ago her family move to Newtown in order for her mother to take a job there.
now although i didnt know this girl personally i have a friend that knew her and her family very well and i have been talking with him about this tragedy ever since Friday...
my friend and his family are mourning the loss of not only this girl but all the victims and im grieving right along with him.

now,as far as my anti-gun opinions go...well,i dont have a problem with guns at all,in fact i probably own more guns then you do...
but i dont have any hand guns or assault rifles because i see those as weapons intended for one purpose only...killing people.....and i dont think they should be in a private citizens hands.

and while i dont have any my brother in law does,he owns a few hand guns but he keeps them in lock boxes and the lock boxes are kept inside a gun safe
and he is the only person in his family that can get at them...no one else knows the combination to his safe...not even his wife.
he does however have numerous other guns as in hunting rifles that his family does have access to.

one of the children that was killed on Friday actually lived in my community and
a few months ago her family move to Newtown in order for her mother to take a job there.
now although i didnt know this girl personally i have a friend that knew her and her family very well and i have been talking with him about this tragedy ever since Friday...
my friend and his family are mourning the loss of not only this girl but all the victims and im grieving right along with him.

now,as far as my anti-gun opinions go...well,i dont have a problem with guns at all,in fact i probably own more guns then you do...
but i dont have any hand guns or assault rifles because i see those as weapons intended for one purpose only...killing people.....and i dont think they should be in a private citizens hands.

and while i dont have any my brother in law does,he owns a few hand guns but he keeps them in lock boxes and the lock boxes are kept inside a gun safe
and he is the only person in his family that can get at them...no one else knows the combination to his safe...not even his wife.
he does however have numerous other guns as in hunting rifles that his family does have access to.

so you see Nate...every assumption you made,was wrong.

I don't understand this concept at all. Cops can carry the guns you don't feel private citizens should have.... how does that make any sense by your line of thinking? Cops can kill the bad guys, but private citizens can't? What's the deal here? Why shouldn't my brother be able to protect himself, but I can?

I've yet to see anyone actually debate and offer some actual logical information that explains why law enforcement and military should get the guns that citizens will "soon" not be allowed to buy.

I don't understand this concept at all. Cops can carry the guns you don't feel private citizens should have.... how does that make any sense by your line of thinking? Cops can kill the bad guys, but private citizens can't? What's the deal here? Why shouldn't my brother be able to protect himself, but I can?

I've yet to see anyone actually debate and offer some actual logical information that explains why law enforcement and military should get the guns that citizens will "soon" not be allowed to buy.

law enforcement are paid to protect the public and in doing their duty they routinely
have to deal with gun toting criminals and need access to something other then a hunting rifle
to protect themselves from harm.

private citizens on the other hand hardly ever encounter criminals,most of the time a persons life is only endanger when a mentally disturbed person
flips out and trys to kill everyone in sight...or maybe its someone thats just had enough of their spouse or family or coworkers,but no matter what the reason if these
people didnt have access to hand guns and assault rifles the death toll would surly be a lot lower.
a person can be killed by any gun but to kill a group of people it is much easier
with a semiautomatic or fully automatic hand gun or rifle then it is with a hunting rifle.